Click. Click. Click. The sound of wooden needles counting stitches like casualties in a quiet war. Wool unravels between fingers
By Elena Vale9 months ago in Poets
Lesson One: How to sharpen a pencil into something dangerous. How to write your name in script so perfect
The china bears the evidence— hairline fractures where her grip tightened but didn’t shatter, water spots like faded tear stains
She folds the rebellion into fitted sheets— each crease a battle line, each sock matched and rolled tight as a Molotov cocktail.
**"The Clock Tower Rebellion"** They said a woman’s place was *in the home*— so we built homes inside our fists.
The books here breathe— spines cracking with the weight of words their authors swallowed: *How to Poison a King and Smile at the Funeral*
They built a wing for us— glass cases full of empty gloves, sound recordings of laughter with no mouths to claim them,
We didn’t come to be quiet. We came to knock on doors they thought were sealed, to say the thing they wish we’d swallow.
They told us God was a man with a beard, a throne, and rules that hurt us. But we have met the divine
Dear me, You don’t owe them a version of yourself they can digest. You were never meant to be small, pliable,
Subtitle: Because they never expected us to laugh this loud while tearing it all down They wanted us tired, terrified,
She mothers like it’s protest. Like every packed lunch and sleepless night is a form of resistance in a world